The other option is to force the datatype on the select before it hits the select into.
IE: SELECT CONVERT( varchar(9), xyz.fLeft_Pad('0', Str(123456789),9))
At that point though you might as well define the table.
Out of curiousity, what are you going to do with hard tables in a SELECT INTO when it's ran concurrently? This technique is almost explicitly used for #tmp tables because of collision concerns.
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